One thing that happened this month was the celebration of my 5th wedding anniversary to my wonderful husband Stephen. We spent three nights at the coast and had a total blast. This was also an important part of my Medifast journey because it marked the first vacation I've taken while on the program, and guess what? I survived!!! I modified the program a bit to fit with our vacation plans... we ate out twice a day, so I was eating more lean and green than normal, but I ate fewer Medifast meals than normal to compensate. I also splurged on splitting a dessert with Stephen for our anniversary dinner, but I made that choice consciously, and not impulsively. I felt good about my decision.
Best part of it? After three days away from home and with a modified eating plan, I still lost 3 pounds that week! I seem to be holding steady at 3 lbs per week, and the fact that I was able to maintain this pattern while modifying the program was astounding to me. I am NOT saying it is ok to modify the program all the time... if you did it all the time you probably would not lose weight as quickly. But what I AM saying is, life happens, and we're supposed to live it well. For me, at that moment, living it well meant enjoying my time with my husband. And rather than being bitter because I "couldn't" have a dessert, I chose to enjoy a dessert... reasonably. I didn't blow my program for the three days and I didn't grab for sugar every chance I got. I made choices that were smart, and still allowed me to enjoy myself. And because my metabolism has been fine-tuned and my body is a calorie-burning machine right now, that dessert didn't stand a chance at sticking to my thighs.
My health coach shared an analogy with me that Dr. Anderson (founder of Take Shape for Life, the program I am doing) says in his book "Dr. A's Habits of Health". He shared that before our bodies are working properly, eating a cookie is like throwing it into a swampy, stagnant, polluted stream. The cookie kind of slowly sludges along among debris and muck. Now, picture throwing that same cookie into Niagara Falls. It totally gets devoured, pummeled by the crashing water. THAT is what our bodies do once they are working like they are supposed to, and THAT is why I was able to modify my program to fit my vacation plans and still lose my 3 lbs for the week.
Speaking of weekly weight loss, I am now 7.5 weeks into the program and TODAY I reached my first weight loss goal of 22 lbs!!! That is 10% of my body weight. Also, that puts me at 199 lbs- or as some weight loss junkies like to call it, "one-derland". :) I cannot tell you how fantastic it feels to be under that 200 mark. I've known I was overweight long before I hit 200, but boy it becomes a glaringly obvious issue when you're looking down at the scale and seeing 200 or more. (Particularly when you are not very tall- I'm 5'4" so I've got no excuse.) It was a shocking and depressing moment the first time I saw the big 2-0-0, and much much worse at my heaviest weight of 250. But I started this program at 221, and I cannot believe it took only 7.5 weeks to reach 199. Certainly, being one pound under does not make me slender by any stretch, but I tell ya what... it sure feels better anyway!
I'm gonna keep on trucking, and I've got a new weight goal in mind now. I'm setting my goals in increments, because it is fun to stay motivated and see myself reach many small goals instead of feeling like it's taking forever to reach the big goal. My next goal is 185. That is the weight I was on my wedding day. Based on my 3 lbs a week pattern, it looks like I'm only 4.5 weeks away!!! That is a crazy thought. I'm pretty excited to dig the clothes out of my "save these clothes til I lose weight and they fit again" box. I'm already fitting into some stuff, and the rest is soon to come. The cool part is, once I hit this goal of 185, I will start to tread into unfamiliar territory. I can't remember weighing any less than 180 (and it was only for a brief period of time) in the last 10+ years. I gained a lot of weight my pre-teen years and have never been a healthy weight as an adult. Anything under 180 has literally not been on my scale since I was old enough to care about my weight and start actually weighing myself occasionally. To think that I may be 6 weeks or so from seeing 170s on my scale is, uh, kind of a big deal to me. (HUGE! MONUMENTAL! GIGUNDOR! Get the idea?!)
I'm ready to sort through my clothes now and get rid of a big pile of "too big" stuff. Because, unlike my "save these clothes til I lose weight and they fit again" box, I am NEVER going to be this weight again so I will NEVER need these big clothes again. Out the door they go, and any doubt or fear can go with them. I'm really doing this and it's really working and I am not going to quit!
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